For this reason (the reason being that with the coming of the Son of God and the Jewish Messiah, Jews and Gentiles come together and form a unified new humanity, a humanity that has been reconciled to God, and reconciled to each other, full of peace and love and unity with the ancient division between Jew and Gentile gone, a humanity that will live forever, )

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Messiah Yeshua for the sake of you Gentiles. Paul had been arrested and was in prison in Rome. It inspires me that even while the Rabbi from Tarsus was in jail he was doing something for the Lord. He was praying, witnessing, writing letters to teach and encourage and correct. That tells us that there is almost always something that we can do to serve the Lord, no matter where we are, no matter what our circumstances are. We have more freedom than Paul. What are we doing to serve the Lord?

For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Messiah Yeshua for the sake of you Gentiles – Paul is the apostle, the man that God specifically sent as His representative to the non-Jews. This Jewish man was chosen by God, prepared and equipped by God, and sent by God to accomplish a great task among the nations of the world. Even though he was a prisoner of men, and despised by the powers of the world, he was honored by God. Isn’t is comforting knowing that though the rich and powerful and influential and successful people may look down on us, the glorious Creator loves us and values us so very highly?

Note again that Gentiles who believe in Messiah are still Gentiles. They are not Jews. They are not Messianic Jews. They are still part of the family and people and nation from which they came.

The apostle to the nations goes on, giving them more information about his ministry: If indeed you have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace which was given to me for you. Paul was appointed by the King of the universe to be a steward, which is an administrator. Paul was like a very high-level manager who was entrusted by the Lord to give the grace of God to others.

The grace of God includes the precious truths about God and Messiah and salvation and eternal life; truths about the right way to understand the Scriptures; truths about the way to lead a good life; truths about how Messiah’s Holy Community was to function.

Part of the ability to properly manage the grace of God that was being given to the Gentiles was having the all the latest relevant information. Because, with the coming of the Son of God into this world, God was doing something radically new. This was a new situation, and new information, new truth was crucial. And God gave that by means of special revelation to His high-level manager, Paul:

that by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief (it seems that the Rabbi is referring to a previous letter he had written to the Ephesians). By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Messiah, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit.

Here is how new revelation that reveals new truth operates: Truth comes from Messiah, and it is clearly communicated to prophets or apostles (who are almost always Jewish people), and they communicate those truths to the rest of humanity. New important revelation almost never comes directly to ordinary human beings.

When the apostle Paul uses the term “mystery,” he is not referring to something strange or something that can not be understood. His use of mystery means something that was not previously understood, but has now been made known.

And here is the mystery, this new information that had been revealed to Gamliel’s greatest disciple: to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Messiah Yeshua through the Gospel.

In other generations, in the ages before the coming of the Son of God, human beings did not understand that the Messiah would come into this world, die and come back to life and ascend back to Heaven, and be at the right hand of God; and that only a remnant of Israel would recognize who the Messiah is, and follow Him; and that the message about Messiah would also be proclaimed to the nations, and that a remnant from those nations would believe in Messiah; and that the Spirit of Messiah would be given to the faithful remnant of Israel and the saved remnant from the nations, and that together they would come together and form a new humanity, a humanity who live in the middle of dead humanity. These things were not understood. No one knew and was expecting this to happen in this way. But God clearly revealed this things to this great Rabbi, so that he could teach the rest of us these important truths.

Paul describes the Mystery of Jews and Gentiles coming together in three ways:

The Gentiles are fellow heirs. Gentile Believers are not aliens, not strangers, not foreigners, not second class citizens, but part of the mishpacha – the family that belongs to God. Like the Jewish saints, they are beloved sons and daughters, with all the great status and position and wealth and power and honor and rights and privileges and blessings and rewards and amazing inheritance that go with being a child of the King of the universe! They will have their share in the New Jerusalem along with the sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The Gentiles are fellow members of the body. There is a new body, a new community of human beings. This new community belongs to Messiah, with Yeshua as the head of the community, God the Father the Father of us all, the Spirit of God living in us all, uniting us to the Father and to the Son and to each other. Gentiles are part of this new community; and for the body to function properly, each part must be used and work with all the other parts of the body. That means that Jewish and Gentile Believers must understand each other, appreciate each other, love each other and work together, serving the Lord. We are to be like a strong and healthy body with all its parts functioning properly.

The Gentiles are fellow partakers of the promise in Messiah Yeshua through the Gospel. Even though Yeshua is the greatest Jew of all – the best son of Israel, our greatest Rabbi, the Son of David and the King of the Jews, and the Messiah of Israel who came for the lost sheep of the House of Israel, He is also the Savior of the world. The Gospel – the Good News, with its promises of being reconciled to the God of Israel, and the receiving of the Spirit of Messiah, and salvation, and everlasting life, was offered to the Chosen people, it is also equally offered to the other nations. And, when an individual from any nation hears the Good News, and understands it, and believes that Yeshua is the Savior, and that person says yes to Yeshua, and makes a commitment to Yeshua to follow Him, then all the promises of the Good News are given to that individual, and he becomes just as much a partaker in those promises as the Jewish saints!

Do you really know that you share in the promise? Do you know the Good News? Do you understand it? Do you believe it? Are you following King Yeshua? Is He your Lord and Savior? Do you hear His voice speaking to you? Do you have His Spirit leading you, guiding you, directing you, whispering to you: “do this, don’t do that. Go here. Speak to that person there? Surrender your goals, your agenda, your priorities, and embrace My goals, agenda and priorities. You need to lay down your life and sacrifice more of your time and energy to accomplish what I know needs to be done.” Do you have that inner witness that you really are a child of God, even though at times you fail and sin and make mistakes? But, at the core of your being, in spite of the weakness of your flesh, in spite of getting entangled in the sins that so easily entangle you, is the desire of your heart to rise up, turn away from your sins, and do a better job of being obedient and serving the Lord?

Because the Lord had revealed these things to the great mind of this great man, Rabbi Paul understood this mystery; and understanding it helped him be a good administrator of the Good News – the Gospel, of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power.

Paul previously told us that he was a steward, an administrator of God’s grace. Now he tells us that he was made a minister, and minister and administrator mean the same thing. A minister is a servant of God who works in the area of spiritual work. He is an administrator of spiritual things, a manager of the things of the Spirit.

It was God’s grace and power at work in the life of Paul that made him a minister of the Gospel. A man does not make himself a minister. He does not appoint himself to be a minister. He does not proclaim himself to be a minister. A minister is made by God. God’s grace, His unmerited favor, is given to that man, so that he is equipped morally, intellectually and spiritually to do the spiritual work he is being asked by God to do. It is the power of God at work in the life of a man that enables him to teach and preach and help and serve in an effective way.

And, the grace and power of God were very much evident in the life of Paul. Even though I believe that Saul of Tarsus was one of the very greatest men who ever lived – tremendous scholar; one of the greatest teachers of the Word of God, fluent in Hebrew and Greek; a prophet, an apostle, a courageous evangelist; and author of much of the New Testament, the great sage from Tarsus did not feel that he was a great man.

He describes himself as the very least of all saints. To the end of his life, Paul remembered the terrible sins he committed before he came to an understanding of the Messiahship of Yeshua – actively and terribly persecuting the true Jews, the Messianic Jewish saints. Throughout his life Paul was always humbled by the grace of the Compassionate God, who not only forgive his crimes, but also advanced him to the high position of apostle to the nations of the world! If this great man felt this kind of humility, thinking about his failings, his failings before he was a believer, then how much more humble should the rest of us be!

Paul summarizes his amazing ministry, one of the greatest ministries and most productive labors of all time, with two thoughts: To me, the very least of all saints this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Messiah, and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery.

It was Paul’s sacred responsibility to go and tell the nations the unfathomable riches of Israel’s Messiah. Because of Messiah, who He is, and what He has done and will do, there is a pile of riches so varied, so abundant, so vast, so deep, that we can’t get to the bottom of it! Messiah is a treasure of wealth so profound, so great, that we can’t search out all of the riches He makes available to those who are joined to Him. He is the source of spiritual riches and physical riches; riches in this life and eternal wealth in the life to come. He enables a richness of good relationships between human beings, between human beings and the angels, human beings and the Tri-Une God, human beings and the other creatures; riches of friendship, and family and love and grace and mercy and forgiveness and atonement and life and adventure and meaning and wisdom and understanding and art and beauty and science and literature and music, and intellectual stimulation, and all the wonders of this creation, and the creation to come – the all have Yeshua of Nazareth as their Source!

It was also Paul’s job to bring to light the administration of the mystery – the mystery being that the Messiah would come into this world, die and come back to life and ascend back to Heaven, and sit at the right hand of God; and that the remnant Messianic Jews and Gentiles among the nations would be saved, and receive the precious Holy Spirit, and how together they form a new humanity. Paul understood this mystery and how it needed to be worked out, administered and put into practice. This is why we must read the works of Paul, know Paul, and trust Paul. Those who dislike Paul and his writings are seriously deficient in their understanding.

Paul administered this mystery by teaching the following: Under the New Covenant, and in this new humanity of Jews and Gentiles, Gentiles did not have to keep all of the commandments that were directed to Israel under the Sinai covenant. The community of Believers were to have godly, humble leaders. They were to love one another, and reach out with love and the message of salvation to the Jew first, and also to the Gentiles.

… the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; the all-wise Creator, who made all things, understands the best way to deal with all things, including all of humanity, Israel and the nations, and you and me; and it was His decision not to reveal this mystery until the Messiah came and died and rose again, and the message about Him began being declared to the Gentiles. Then, the infinitely wise God revealed these things to us.

The revealing of this mystery was essential to the healthy growth of Messiah’s Holy Community of Jews and Gentiles, the Church, the Called Out Ones, the Body of Messiah, but it also was designed to impact the other sons of God – the angels. … So that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Messiah Yeshua our Lord.

Angels are real. They are older than us. They precede us. They are intelligent. They are wise. They were with God before we were created. There is a lot of history between God and the angels, things we don’t understand. And, God, the angels and us are all involved with one another. There are things going on with human beings, and particularly with the Messianic community of Believers, that are part of God’s dealings with the angels – the good angels and the fallen angels. What is going on among Messianic Jews and Gentile Christians, forming this saved new humanity that is reconciled to the Creator, purchased with the blood of the Messiah, indwelt by the Spirit, reveals to these powerful and ancient and intelligent spiritual beings many different aspects of the wisdom of God. Deep and profound things are happening to us and with us and through us, things that impact us, and the history of the world, and the course of the World-To-Come, but also those powerful beings in the heavenly places.

That should encourage us to take these things very seriously, and give them the proper attention that they deserve. May God, through His grace and power, enable each one of us to do so!